Abstract
Harmonious developments of electrical and mechanical performances are crucial for stretchable sensors in structural health monitoring (SHM) of flexible aircraft such as aerostats and morphing aircrafts. In this study, we prepared a highly durable ternary conductive nanocomposite made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), carbon black (CB) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to fabricate stretchable strain sensors. The nanocomposite has excellent electrical and mechanical properties by intensively optimizing the weight percentage of conducting fillers as well as the ratio of PDMS pre-polymer and curing agent. It was found that the nanocomposite with homogeneous hybrid filler of 1.75 wt % CB and 3 wt % MWCNTs exhibits a highly strain sensitive characteristics of good linearity, high gauge factor (GF ~ 12.25) and excellent durability over 105 stretching-releasing cycles under a tensile strain up to 25% when the PDMS was prepared at the ratio of 12.5:1. A strain measurement of crack detection for the aerostats surface was also employed, demonstrating a great potential of such ternary nanocomposite used as stretchable strain sensor in SHM.
Highlights
Strain sensors, tightly mounted on/in measured objects, have been widely used in aerospace, wearable electronics, civil engineering, human-machine interface, etc., to monitor and record the healthy condition
We introduced a highly durable ternary conductive nanocomposite consisting of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), carbon black (CB) nanoparticles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) via optimizing the process parameters including weight percentage of conducting fillers and the ratio of PDMS pre-polymer and curing agent in terms of electrical conductivity and strain sensitivity of nanocomposite
It can be found that the incorporation of MWCNTs alone increased the conductivity of MWCNTs/PDMS composites by almost 7 orders of magnitude, from 1.6 × 10−7 to 2.2 S/m when the weight percentage of MWCNTs was increased from 0% to 15%
Summary
Tightly mounted on/in measured objects, have been widely used in aerospace, wearable electronics, civil engineering, human-machine interface, etc., to monitor and record the healthy condition. Despite their attractive features, conventional strain sensors, such as foil strain gauge, Fiber Bragg Grating and semiconductor strain sensor, show some limitations in terms of low gauge factor (GF ~2.2), weak deformation ability and small measurement range (
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